


Open Water

by Neyiea



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, ambiguous timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 21:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8550610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: Lance misses the smell of salt and the crunch of sand and the untameable waves.





	

The sand that covers this planet is coarse and burgundy, and crunches underneath Lance’s boots in a way that reminds him more of autumn leaves than anything else. Apparently when exposed to extreme heat it melts down into something like putty, and Coran keeps going on and on about all the useful items that can be formed from it.

Storms don’t occur here, there’s never enough build up of an electrical charge and not enough vapour in the air to form clouds, but Lance finds himself wishing that lightening would strike, right in front of him, so that he could see if a fulgurite would form.

He kicks at the sand, humming in feigned interest when Coran momentarily pauses his educational lecture about the exquisite beauty of the glassware made here.

All this sand, and no water in sight. The vast majority of it is underground, and towns spring up in areas where it runs close to the surface. The population of the planet don’t drill wells or go digging for it, instead choosing to rely on their staple food, a deeply rooted cross between a bitter melon and a cactus, to keep them hydrated. 

It’s weird, to not even come across a river when they’re mapping out terrain, and something about it makes Lance feel on edge.

He and Coran somehow ended up being voted to secure the town perimeter together in preparation for tonight’s celebration. Possibly because Lance can never seem to give Coran the slip, and the last time Lance was on perimeter duty with Keith he’d snuck away and ended up almost kidnapped by a pack of rambunctious children who thought he was funny and, from what Coran and Allura had later explained to him, wanted to keep him around for a couple extra weeks. 

Okay, Lance might have to secretly admit that he feels a bit better with adult supervision to ensure a fiasco like that never happens again. He just wishes someone else had come along with them, having another human around might make him feel more at ease.

He looks up at the two stars lighting the sky. The furthest one, a dim orange, is an hour or two away from sinking below the horizon while the bright yellow closest to the planet is straight overhead. He wonders vaguely how long nights last here, and what the sleep-wake cycles of the indigenous population are like.

“You’re being quiet. You alright?”

Lance startles, arms flinging up as if to fend Coran off as he yelps, and the Altean just raises a curious eyebrow at his reaction. Lance clears his throat and forcefully lets his posture drop back into an at-ease slouch.

“I’m fine. Just scanning to see if there are any airborne species we should be wary of tonight.”

Coran positively beams at him. “Good strategy, it always pays to prepare defenses from all sides! I should remind you, however, that the largest flying species of this planet are nocturnal, and only grow to be about the size of your hand.”

Well, that’s not so bad.

“They do have a tendency to hunt in enormous packs, though, and can be known to take down something ten times their size if they’re desperate enough for food!”

Of course they do.

Travelling though space is undeniably cool, but also extremely terrifying. Lance has tread upon the surface of planets that he really would have rather avoided all together; where the thick atmosphere is toxic to humans, where the thin upper crust could break beneath you at any moment, where the plants were actually carnivorous, all in the hope that Team Voltron could make enough allies to aid them in undoing ten thousand years of universe conquering. This planet is far from being the most hostile that they’ve landed on, but the purple dunes stretching before them that aren’t even made up of proper sand just seem innately wrong to him.

A handful of times they’ve somehow managed to land somewhere that has a decently large body of liquid that could almost pass for water, and an adequate little beach, and it reminds him enough of the oceans back on Earth that it makes him homesick.

Hunk must feel like that too, he reasons, because Lance will sometimes catch him gazing out onto the waves with dull eyes and a half-smile that seems more forlorn than anything else. It makes sense that they miss the water most out of everyone else. Even back at the Garrison, landlocked as they were, when they talked about their respective homes there was always some mention of swimming, diving, failed attempts at surfing, or even just lazing on the sand and drifting off to the sound of the ocean. 

“Man, I would kill for a body of water that I could actually swim in,” he grouses, and Coran abruptly stills beside him. “It’s a figure of speech, I’m not going to literally kill anyone.”

“I see.” Coran purses his lips, eyes narrowing like he’s filing away vital information to be studied later. Human speech habits 101. “Alteans are more of a swim for survival race, we’re much better with solid ground underneath us.”

“There are people like that on Earth, too,” Lance says as they start making their way back to the village, “but I’ve always felt at home in the ocean. My mom would take me swimming in the shallows with her before I even knew how to walk. It’s second nature.”

There’s something soothing about telling Coran about his life back home, and even though there’s no way that they’re the only ones missing their old lives Coran is the first one who he really opened up to about it, so it’s easy to slip into a conversation about Earth and Altea, their similarities and differences. 

“I dream about the ocean, you know. Sometimes I dream that I’m wading through the shallows, searching for seashells, and every one that I pick up crumbles like chalk in my hand. When I wake up I swear I can smell salt in the air.”

Coran’s hand is gentle when it settles on his shoulder.

“Every now and again when I close my eyes I can see the constellations that I grew up under. I draw them out sometimes, so that I can remember exactly how I used to see them ” he confides, and they share a smile.

By the time they reach the town Lance is outwardly back to his usual self, waving a quick goodbye to Coran before heading off to find Hunk and Pidge.

Coran watches him go with a thoughtful look. 

The celebration of a new alliance goes remarkably well, with no nocturnal flying creatures swarming them, and the bitter melon/cactus is actually pretty great, especially when it’s been crushed, strained and fermented with herbs and fruits that Lance has never heard of. It goes down smoothly and burns the back of his throat a little, but mostly it just makes him feel pleasantly loose and talkative.

He’s got one arm wrung around Hunk’s shoulders, trusting his friend to keep him upright if gravity proves to be too much for him to handle, and babbles about the first time he’d been allowed a sip of wine during the holidays, and how awful it had tasted. Hunk smiles down at him, even as his one-sided conversation leaps from wine to purple sand to how much he misses being immersed in water.

Hunk nods along amiably, still smiling. “Once all this is over and we’re back on Earth you and I are going to learn to surf together.”

That is music to Lance’s ears. 

“When civilizations build statues of us they had better always have me standing beside you," Lance says, completely serious. 

Hunk laughs so hard that they both shake, and it’s enough to make Lance forget, for a little while, how far away from home they are. 

“Hunk, buddy, someday we are going to find a planet that has a decent lake, or sea, or something.” His knees give out, just a little, but thankfully Hunk widens his stance and hooks an arm easily around Lance’s waist, keeping him upright. “And I am going to drag you into the water before you even have a chance to consider running away.”

Hunk laughs again, softer this time. “Not if I drag you in first.”

"Promise?"

"I promise."

**Author's Note:**

> And then Coran convinced Allura to give the Paladins a vacation on a planet that has an ocean :)


End file.
